


step into the light of grace

by Ori_Cat



Category: Relic Master Series - Catherine Fisher
Genre: Execution, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Martyrdom, Religious Persecution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 11:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14851985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ori_Cat/pseuds/Ori_Cat
Summary: It is good and fitting to die for one's faith, they say. Holy. Honourable.But what if your death will be meaningless? What if you're still afraid?





	step into the light of grace

She woke to a bright light, and warmth on her face, and for a moment thought that it was all over, that she had finally died and found herself in the paradise of Earth, no more distress and no more weeping - 

And then the pain came back. 

She peeled open swollen eyes to a terrible unyielding whiteness, struggling to blink it away. The tiny barred window was filled with sunlight, and the beam dripped golden-white through and fell over her face, chest, the stones of the wall. Morning. 

So she’d slept, then. Had managed at least some. Thank goodness for small mercies. 

This would be the fifth day since she had been captured. Since her small camp in the next valley over had been set upon and she had been dragged back in chains to the Watch outpost here. The fifth day of questions and blows and torn muscles as the men tried to drag the hidings of other keepers from her, as they tried to make an example to the village, _see, see the folly of the Order and all their lies,_ as though suffering made the faith less true. As though pain made things cease to exist. 

She supposed she should be grateful that they were this remote, that the Watchmen here either didn’t have access to or were simply reluctant to use the horror stories that had been passed along - worms that burrowed into flesh and poisons that seared nerves to molten gold and visions that burrowed into minds, to tear souls apart. At least with boots and nails and knives no-one had been able to find her soul. She was fairly certain. 

(Hadn’t they already, though? _You are a soul. In the eyes of the Makers, you are your soul. You just_ have _a body._ ) 

Something rattled, metal on metal, outside the keyhole of her vision. Footsteps thudded on stone, and she heard the sound more through the floor and her skull than through the air. Probably two of them. 

“Get up.” Before the boot could land, she convulsed and rolled to one side, struggling to push herself up through the haze of exhaustion and hunger, dragging herself against the suck and pull of gravity trying to merge her back to earth. 

The world went very indistinct, and she paused there, on her knees, trying to remember to breathe, trying not to black out entirely. It would only be worse if she did. 

“Oh, to hell with this,” somebody muttered, and a hand was fisted in her hair and its owner pulled, and her scalp exploded into fire, the pain dragging out all the breath from her lungs in one rush. 

But it worked. When she managed to blink her vision clear she’d got his feet back under her, standing at least enough for the men to seize her around the arms instead. Her hair wasn’t released, though. “Last chance,” the Watchman hissed. “You can still save yourself. No-one will have to know.” 

“I will.” It came out cracked and whisper-quiet, but at least the words came out at all. 

“Okay, that’s just wrong,” she heard the second man mutter, probably accompanied with a glare in her direction but her head was too heavy to hold up to see it. 

They didn’t bother with bonds - and besides, what could she have done? This exhausted and broken she couldn’t have pulled up the energy for even a spark like touching wool in winter - just dragged her by flesh and hair through the corridor and the Watchhouse and _past_ the interrogation room they normally used, the one with no windows and only one chair, the one filled with ash and dirt and horror, and to their main door, the one that led out. It was iron and oak, multiple-bolted, and as the Watchman fumbled with the keys, mechanisms clanking, she wondered what it was they intended to do with her. Because she hadn’t been freed, not with no papers, no boots, and no capitulation, and the only other options there were more torment or labour or execution. 

The last bolt clattered back, and the door swung stiffly open, letting in a yellow slice of sun and birdsong that would have been pretty, almost. The man shoved her shoulder blade, and she stumbled out into the sunlight, hunching over her ruined hands. 

_I’m going to ask you ten times,_ the sergeant had said, _ten times._

By the third day it had gotten easier to stay silent. That was right around the time they’d driven a knife through her cheek. 

If it was morning, it must have been very early, for the streets were almost empty and the air was still chill, piercing right through her skin and pulling tears into her eyes. Cobblestones still slick with dew slid under her bare feet. On the other side of the square, a woman carrying a few folded clothes glanced over at her and then quickly looked away, hurrying on. Scared for herself too. 

Up ahead, she saw another Watchman standing, arms folded against the cold, at the side of the track, which was the only road into the town, so - 

No. No no no no no. They weren’t just going to shoot her or smash in the back of her head and be done with it, let her lie in the coolth of the riverbed or the dark of the forest litter. They were going to gibbet her, like - in all her travelling (running) she had passed by other keepers hung in city squares or nailed to T-bars, the Watch’s testament, and she hadn’t been able to do anything but give them silent prayers as she passed, fearful even to look for too long lest that arouse suspicion. They were going to give her the worst death a man could die. 

What little strength she had flowed away then, and she would have fallen in terror to the ground were it not for the men’s fingers digging into her, and the track slippery with dew over fine dust, that wouldn’t let her feet get any traction to scrabble away. One lifted a hand and slapped her, businesslike, over the temple, and in the few minutes it took her head to stop ringing and the red-grey bruises invading her vision to clear she’d already been hauled to the feet of the third, who was twining the frayed end of a rope around his wrists, forwards and backwards. Lazily, like one of the little cats watching a bird. 

The men released her arms, let her drop back into the dust, jarring every bone she knew she had and a few she’d only recently found out about. One of them was saying something but the words fell muddied about her, draining away into the silence of the morning. 

From the outside, she must have looked some awful semblance of piety, on her knees, head bowed, fumbling for beads no longer there. They’d shattered those, first thing, and the pain from that had been terrible, thousands of stabbing, vibrating shocks through her mind and soul as the awen snapped back and grounded in whatever it could. Even before they’d laid any hands on her she’d been left too shaky and scraped-out to fight what came after. 

_Please,_ she begged. _Flain, Soren, Tamar, all you lords, help me, tell me, is this what you will for me? I am so scared, lords, please._

The terror refused to abate. The darkness inside her head remained empty except for the awful certainty that they would kill her and it wouldn’t matter, eventually, the whole Order would fall before them. 

She felt entirely alone. 

(But no-one could ever be entirely alone, because the Makers were always there, and -) 

But had she only told herself that because she was afraid? 

_Anyone can believe when it is easy,_ her master had said, long ago when the world was unbroken. _Anyone can believe on Flainsnight, or Field of Gold - I do not think that even the non-believers can feel nothing, watching and listening then. And it is easy, when there is celebration, when the holiest of rituals are performed. It is easy to believe in the good times, when there is joy to spare, when there are no obstacles._

_But the truly faithful are still there on the ordinary days. When their faith is more a chore than a pleasure. When they don’t feel it, when they’re cold and tired and when it is hard, so hard to believe - the truly faithful may slog through, but they still come._

_There is this idea that faith is always steady and firm, that to be a true believer one must never doubt, never stumble. That it’s worthless to try if you do. But the Makers don’t want perfection, _he had said,_ they want you. They’ll take whatever brings you to them, whether it’s joy or suffering or doubt, but at the end of it they don’t want perfect believers, they want the believers they have. _

_So what should I do?_ she had asked. _When everything feels hollow? How do I get it back, how do I feel it again?_

 _Pray,_ he had said, _even if you don’t think anyone is listening. Meditate, even if nothing seems to happen. And just… wait. Patience is a virtue, after all,_ he’d smiled at her, _and the Makers’ designs take time to work._

She didn’t have that much time. 

Hands fell on her shoulders again, digging into bruised flesh, and hauled her back up to standing, shoved her at the ash tree by the side of the track. Someone laughed. 

_Kest, lord of hopeless causes,_ she thought desperately, _at least make it easy, quick. Grant me that mercy at least._

Somehow, she made it the seven steps to the tree, though everything in her screamed to run, to beg, to do something, anything - 

The bark was still cold from the night, and she sagged against it, vaguely grateful for the least bit of support. Chunks of her hair caught in the crevices of the bark. The second Watchman stepped closer and bound her, pulling the rope tight, pressing on her ribs and her hands, and the world turned into nothing but the white-hot pain running up her arms. Vaguely she heard herself sobbing, pathetic wounded animal noises, and oh god she couldn’t _breathe,_ if she breathed she would stab herself on the cracked ends of her ribs - 

She had to open her eyes. 

But in the end, what did it matter? Who was ever going to know whether she’d died strong or cowardly? 

_I will._

The panic was still there, still filling up her lungs like drowning; her heart still hammered like it intended to break itself and take her death for its own. She was still going to die, was going to die alone and unable to feel whether the Makers were near her, for a faith riddled with doubts. And it wasn’t going to _matter,_ her body would rot here and nobody would ever know, she’d been alone too long to imagine anyone would remember her. If she’d thought she’d known what despair was before, it was nothing compared to this sucking blackness. Didn’t matter didn’t matter didn’t matter pulsed over her like raindrops in a storm, she ought to collapse crying, ought to beg - 

\- but it wouldn’t save her either. She didn’t have to die to give glory to the Makers, but even if she couldn’t believe, her own choice mattered, didn’t it? To her? 

Her vision swum with exhaustion and pain and tears; she could feel herself still weeping hot and sticky through the dust and dried blood on her face. A blurry motion off to the side turned into the _click-click_ of a bow being ratcheted back, and she went cold again. 

“Anything to say?” 

Her lips were cleaved together anyway, but there was nothing. She was no hero, and only a martyr in the strictest sense. She was just her, and her didn’t have any words left. 

He lifted the bow. The world narrowed down, sky and trees and everything melting away to leave only the glint on that steel head and her countdown of breaths, _three -_

_two -_

_one -_

_Click._

Kest was merciful. She didn’t feel.


End file.
